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Thursday, September 25, 2014

Thursday, September 25, 2014 - King Fire Smoke (and Rain) Update

RAIN (and more of it than we thought would occur)! This worthy of an exclamation point for those in the smoke monitoring business because rain and clouds are very good at cleaning (the jargon term is "scavenging") fine particles from the air. Drippy smoke monitors are good!

Above: the smoke monitor (Squaw Valley), dripping after today's rain. Thanks to Creekside Charter School for providing the site for this important data source on very short notice.

Parts of the fire took up to about 0.75 inches of rain, and much of the surrounding area also experienced varying amounts as a band of rain clouds (pictured with the monitoring map below) swept over central and northern CA. Tomorrow, the Air Resource Advisors on the fire anticipate negligible smoke at all of the monitoring sites.

However, there was a lot of acreage on fire, so it's not out of the question that smoke production and at least localized smoke impacts might begin again in areas near the fire as conditions dry again and hotter areas with heavy fuels become active again. Stay tuned for more information on any such activity in the coming days.